Cake
by mirabien
Summary: Cooper tries to do something nice. Things don't go quite as planned. Oneshot. Written for a friend.


Cooper sighed. _Shit_. Charlotte was going to kill him. All he'd wanted was to bake her a cake for her birthday. That was all. Just a nice, simple cake to celebrate the birthday of the woman he loved. It had started out so well, too... How he'd come to be covered in flour, frosting, and half-baked cake batter was something Cooper couldn't quite comprehend.

He grimaced and surveyed the rest of the damage. Eggs on the floor, check. Gooey, chocolatey mess dripping down the oven walls, check. Flour all over the goddamn kitchen table, check. Chocolate frosting on the _wait, how in the hell did that end up on the ceiling? _Cooper just sighed again. _Suppose I should go get a towel or some napkins or something. _Using paper napkins, he attempted to scrub the inside of the oven, and remembered that he'd forgotten to turn the oven off when the napkins promptly caught fire, blackened, and shriveled in his fingers.Fantastic.

Cooper turned to search for something else to clean up with when he heard a car door slam. _Shit shit shit_. He'd forgotten Charlotte was supposed to be home early today. Panicking, he grabbed a hand towel and attempted to wipe himself off.

"Cooper? Coop, I'm home," Charlotte called. At any other time, Cooper loved hearing her voice. It was velvety and smooth, and the way she said his name put him of eating homemade vanilla ice cream and sweet, crisp peaches. It encompassed everything quintessentially _Southern_ about her and everything he loved–her passion for her work, her biting wit, her capacity for love. Right now, though, Cooper was terrified. He could hear her heels on the hardwood floor, coming closer. He was doomed. _Oh god oh god oh god..._

"Coop? Where are you–" Charlotte appeared in the doorway of the kitchen and stopped and stared.

"You're...back early!" Cooper smiled weakly and tried to think of a good excuse as to why he was covered in half the contents of their pantry. And then, _oh shit, no..._as a dollop of chocolate frosting dripped from the ceiling directly onto Charlotte's blonde hair. He watched in horror as she slowly raised a hand to her forehead, swiped her fingers across her bangs, and brought her hand down to her eyes. Her lips tightened and she raised an eyebrow, staring at him expectantly.

"I, ah, was baking you a cake."

"You were baking. A cake," she said flatly. If it were possible, Charlotte's eyebrow arched even higher. She sighed a deep, worldweary sigh, and raised her eyes to the ceiling. It looked to Cooper as though she were asking the creator what on earth she'd done to deserve such a punishment as him. She sighed again and continued, "And what, exactly, did you do that ended up with this cake all over the damn kitchen?"

"Well, I just tried to, you, know, bake it...and I didn't have that much time before you came home, so I just put all of it in the oven..." Cooper's voice faltered and he trailed off when he saw Charlotte's eyes widen. _Ah, not good._

She seemed to visibly take control of herself. "What do you mean, you _put all of it in the oven?_" she asked.

"I, um, thought I wouldn't have time to frost it before you got home, so I put the frosting on it before putting it in the oven..." Charlotte's eyebrows almost disappeared into her hairline. Cooper rushed on, "And then I turned up the oven temperature so it would bake faster." Charlotte made an inhuman noise. "And then the oven exploded," he finished breathlessly. Cooper could only stare at his wife. _She's going to kill me. She is going to murder me and bury me under the floorboards. No, not floorboards. The backyard. Someone else's backyard._

He saw her lip twitch into an odd little smile. He watched nervously as she made her way over to him, sidestepping puddles of batter and broken eggshells. She reached out to ruffle his flour-covered hair and he tensed.

Charlotte sighed once more and looked at him appraisingly. "You know, Coop, you are the biggest man-child I have ever come across," she drawled. "But, I love you anyway." Cooper breathed a sigh of relief. She dragged her forefinger in a puddle of batter on the table and wiggled her eyebrows suggestively at him. "And I think we _could_ find a good use for this batter, don't you agree?"

Cooper smiled. _Indeed_.


End file.
